I stared at him. “Holy…”
“I know.” His face cracked into a smile.
“Shit,” I finished. Then I shook my head. “I mean—congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He shifted his weight.
I almost asked how Beth got pregnant but stopped myself before I asked that stupid question. “Wow. You’re…you’re having a baby?”
“Yeah.”
I gripped the edges of the counter. I was struck stupid, and all I could think about were those kids in Daedalus—the origins. The children of a male Luxen and female hybrid, so rare that if Daedalus learned of this…
I couldn’t finish the thought.
Dawson let out a shaky breath. “Okay. Say something else.”
“Uh, how…how far along is she?” Is that what people asked under normal circumstances?
His shoulders relaxed. “She’s around three months.”
Damn. They must’ve had one hell of a reunion.
“You’re mad, aren’t you?” he asked.
“What? No. I’m not mad. I just don’t know what to say.” And I kept thinking that in six months we were going to have a baby that could fry brain cells with a single thought if it didn’t get its binky. “I just wasn’t expecting this.”
“Neither was I, or Beth. We didn’t plan this. It just sort of…happened.” His chest rose sharply. “It wasn’t like I thought having a baby at this age was a smart thing, but it happened, and we’re going to do our best. I…I already love him more than I’ve loved anything.”
“Him?”
Dawson’s smile was part awkward, part joyous. “The baby could be a girl, but I’ve been calling it a ‘he.’ Drives Beth crazy.”
I forced a smile. He didn’t seem to know about the origins. Was it possible that Beth didn’t know, either? If so, they had no idea what they were about to bring into this world. I started to say something but cut myself off. Now wasn’t the time.
“I know things are going to be hard,” he went on. “We can’t go to a normal doctor. I know that, and it scares the shit out of me.”
“Hey.” I pushed forward, clamping a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay. Beth and the…and the baby will be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
Dawson’s smile of relief was evident.
I had no idea how we were going to figure this out, but women had been having babies since the beginning of time without doctors. Couldn’t be that hard, right? I sort of wanted to punch myself in the face after that, though.
Childbirth scared the crap out of me.
We talked for a little while longer, and I promised to keep things quiet. They weren’t ready to share the news with everyone, and I could understand that. Kat and I hadn’t told anyone that we were sort of married.
Marriage.
Babies.
Aliens in Vegas.
The freaking world was coming to an end.
Still feeling a little shell-shocked, I headed into the living room. I stopped in front of the couch where Kat was curled up against the arm, the quilt bunched up under her chin. She was asleep.
Lowering myself, I carefully picked her up and placed her in my lap, her legs spread out between mine. She stirred, rolled onto her side, but remained asleep.
I stared out the window into the darkness for hours.
Now more than anything we had to do something. Not just run and hide. That was going to be damn near impossible as it was. The world knew about us now. Things would only get more dangerous from here on out.
And in a few months, we’d have a baby to worry about—a baby that could wreak all kinds of havoc.
We had to do something. We had to make a stand, change the future, or there’d be no future for any of us.
I smoothed my hand up Kat’s spine, curving my fingers around the nape of her neck. Tipping my chin down, I pressed my lips to her forehead. She murmured my name sleepily, and my chest clenched with the degree of emotion I felt for her. I leaned back on the couch and stared through the window into the darkness.
The uncertainty of tomorrow loomed like a storm cloud, but there was one thing I was fairly confident of, something more ominous than the unknown waiting for all of us.
We would be hunted by the humans and the Luxen.
And if they thought exposing the truth to the world was the most extreme thing I could do to protect those I loved, they hadn’t seen anything yet.
They had no idea what I was truly capable of.
Chapter 31
Katy
I’d been vaguely aware of Daemon coming to the couch and wrapping himself around me, but that wasn’t what woke me several hours later. At some point during the night, his arms had tensed around me in a near chokehold.
And he was in his true form.
As beautiful as that was, it was also very hot and blinding.
Struggling to loosen his grip, I twisted in his embrace, squinting against the harsh glare. “Daemon, wake up. You’re—”
He jerked awake, sitting up so fast I almost fell onto the floor. The light dimmed, and he was back in his human form, a bewildered expression on his face. “That hasn’t happened since I was a kid—changing into my true form without realizing it.”
I stroked his arm. “Stress?”
He shook his head, his gaze settling over my shoulder. His expression tensed. “I don’t know. It…”
Footsteps pounded upstairs and within seconds, the whole crew was downstairs looking just as out of it as Daemon did. Untangling myself from his embrace, I shoved the quilt off and stood. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”